Royal Commission hears infamous Lawyer X was once 'reliable' as probe continues

Karen Sweeney

AAP

Thursday, 28 March 2019 8:29 am

Lawyer X Royal Commission

The Royal Commission into the Lawyer X scandal has heard Gobbo became a ‘loose cannon’.

Nicola Gobbo was recruited as the infamous informer "Lawyer X" despite a Victorian police officer labelling her a "loose cannon" years earlier.

Ms Gobbo, a criminal barrister who represented some of the best-known characters in Melbourne's gangland wars, acted as a police informer on and off between 1995 and 2009.

But she continued to give police information until August 2010, a royal commission into the police use of informers has revealed.

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Paterson is set to return to the witness box on Thursday, a day after acknowledging that he knew last June that Ms Gobbo had been registered as an informant in 1995 when that information wasn't revealed to prosecutors or the commission until January.

The first registration came 18 months after Ms Gobbo was charged with possession of cannabis and amphetamine, after a drug sting targeting her boyfriend Brian Wilson.

Sergeant Trevor Ashton was involved in the bust and later, in 1995, recruited Ms Gobbo as an informer, calling her "reliable" and noting she genuinely wanted to help police.

A year later, she turned on her boyfriend, introducing Wilson to an undercover officer shortly before being labelled a "loose cannon" in a report by then-detective Jack Blayney, who went on to become an assistant commissioner.

She was dropped as a source but a couple of years later, another future assistant commissioner, Jeff Pope, re-registered her and became her handler in a money-laundering and fraud investigation into her former employer.

That too was short-lived and Ms Gobbo's career as a criminal barrister took off.

She went on to represent clients including underworld figures Carl Williams and Lewis Moran, and drug lord Tony Mokbel.

Ms Gobbo was again a registered informant from 2004 until 2009, but gave police information until August 2010 when then chief commissioner Simon Overland issued a directive that nothing more be accepted from her.

Mokbel is now reportedly among 35 people who have made submissions to the commission, arguing criminal proceedings against them are tainted by Ms Gobbo's informing.

In his statement to the commission, released publicly on Wednesday night, Mr Paterson noted that Victoria Police had identified failures and shortcomings in practices relating to Ms Gobbo and other human sources.

"The failures that have occurred in relation to Ms Gobbo could not occur in the context of our current policies," he wrote.

"Victoria Police continues to manage high risk human sources under (a) new model."

Royal Commissioner Margaret McMurdo said on Wednesday Ms Gobbo's physical and psychological wellbeing were concerns for the commission.